


i wanted to tell you this story without having to confess anything

by vulpesvortex



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 21:44:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6488641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpesvortex/pseuds/vulpesvortex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hal should be out celebrating with his friends, should be drinking to the standing ovation they had gotten from the audience, the effusive interview the Gazette reporter had done with them backstage. Instead, Hal was here, at Royston’s door.</p><p>(A scene from the Ballet AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i wanted to tell you this story without having to confess anything

**Author's Note:**

> Last year when I did my first ballet AU drawings on Tumblr, this was the scene I longed to write. I planned out more of the AU, but I doubt I'll ever have the motivation. In lieu of a real fic, here is a little snapshot of the evening where it all comes together for Hal and Royston. 
> 
> Royston's adaptation of Le Sacre Du Printemps is based on [the '65 version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vha7SM6bTrs) performed by the Bolshoi in Moscow.

“Hal,” Royston could hear the shock in his own voice. It was opening night. It was very late. Hal should be out celebrating with his friends, should be drinking to the standing ovation they had gotten from the audience, the effusive interview the Gazette reporter had done with them backstage. Instead, Hal was here, at Royston’s door.

“Royston,” Hal said. “Can I come in?” He said it softly, but there was a tremulous urgency underneath. His green hoodie was slightly damp with rain.

It took Royston a moment to react. “Oh, yes, of course!” He stepped back to let Hal inside. “I thought you would be hitting up a bar with Laure and Thom,” he admitted.

“No, I-” Hal averted his eyes, blushing slightly. “I left.”

“You should be celebrating-”

“I was! I am,” he said seriously, stepping minutely closer. The air suddenly seemed very thin. “We were out for drinks at the Rookery, but then I realized there was somewhere I would rather be.”

“Hal.” Royston took a step back, clearing his throat. “Would you like something to drink? Let me get you a towel for your hair.”

Royston saw Hal clench his delicate jaw, as though frustrated, then sigh. “Alright.” He started to shrug out of his jacket. Royston scrambled into the kitchen.

“Tea alright?” he called, his voice sounding ridiculous even to himself.

“Yeah, anything’s fine,” Hal called back as he hung up his things in the hallway.

Royston peeked into the hall. Hal was fingering the sleeve of Royston’s long, navy coat, tracing the dark, almost-invisible damask of the lining, the golden button on the cuff. His stomach felt warm and hollow at the same time, a combination of joy and fear that was hard to untangle. He quickly went back to fussing with the tea things before Hal could catch him watching.

Royston looked up to see Hal in the doorway, down to his t-shirt and jeans, and swallowed hard. The t-shirt was stained, wet. “Did you want that towel?”

“Do you have a shirt I could borrow?”

“O-of course. I’ll go get something.” He shouldn’t sound this breathless. He had to squeeze past Hal in the doorway to get to the hall and from there the stairs to his bedroom. “Tea’s on the counter. Help yourself,” he called unnecessarily.

 

* * *

 

Hal was watching him, sipping his tea indolently, his eyes heavy-lidded and dark, either exhaustion from the show or from the light of the fireplace. He was wearing one of Royston’s crisp white linen shirts, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing a familiar expanse of freckled forearms. He looked very soft, his toes curling into the carpet where he sat on the floor.

In fact, he was sitting just like he sat last time, when they had sat close together, both hoarse with excitement and reverence as they leafed through twenty years of Royston’s choreography sketches and notes. One specific folder, to be exact. Royston kept to the safety of the armchair this time, but he could still see, spread out on his desk, the same sketches of two dancers moving passionately, intimately in and out of each other’s arms. Male dancers. He had found himself pulling them out more often lately, and looking at them with what felt like new eyes, as if the designs had never been truly real before but were now tangible in some new way. A small coal of hope had started burning in his chest.

Hal had lost some of his bluster since they had gone into the den and in front of the hearth, yet he did not seem like he wanted to be anywhere but where he was, curled at Royston’s feet.

“What was your first night like?” Hal voiced eventually, not quite hesitant, but like he thought the question might be overstepping some boundary of propriety.

“Which one?” Royston couldn’t help but tease. “First on the planks or first as lead? Not all of us get cast on lead right out of the gate, you know.”

Hal blushed furiously. “Any. Either.”

Royston sipped at his wine. It was a fancy Bordeaux, deep and red, with a tang of sweetness. He had to take care he did not drink too much; he felt out of control enough just being around Hal. “It was magical. And of course it was terrifying too.”

“Were you happy?” Hal asked, then immediately ducked his head.

“You should already know I am never happy when it comes to dancing,” Royston teased, smiling. The endless rehearsals and revisions would surely have taught Hal that. “But yes, I was. And of course, I was also convinced I was actually terrible, and that there were a million things that could have gone better, and that surely next day all the reviews would say it was a mistake, who had let this country bumpkin with the heavy footwork on the stage?!” Vain man that he was, he of course had clippings of the actual reviews in a drawer somewhere. _Explosive_ , they said. The second year, the one he’d first danced the lead, the show had been called a powderkeg.

“I was happy tonight. I never- I never thought I’d be here, like this,” Hal said. “Were you happy tonight?”

Royston recalled warmly his emotions watching the show. He was a veteran dancer and a seasoned choreographer. This was by no means his first rodeo, but first night always brought the nerves, no matter if it was your first or fortieth year in the company. And the choice of ballet had been risky, riskier than it had been in recent years. _Le Sacre Du Printemps_ was no _Swan Lake_.  
  
He had watched Hal and Laure glide from the wings, sensed the enthralled silence of the audience, the collective gasps at specific moments. He had been congratulated afterwards by everyone from the mayor to the head of the Opéra board. Many had commented on the exquisite technique of his leads and their uniquely twinned appearance. Hal and Laure, the ballet’s two primary dancers, were two sides of the same coin. Laure a little taller than the usual ballerina, Hal deceptively lean, both pale and freckled, both still a little rough from the countryside. Their auburn and copper hair, like twin spirits. Royston had seen, from their first auditions, how it would be: those two mirror-images dancing lead in his ballet, a new adaptation of a heretic classic. Two pagan godlings, with their perfect rough tread and emotional dynamism. A perfect aesthetic vision. The performance itself had not been flawless, but then there was no such thing.

They were originally to be lovers. But there was no tension, no erotic thrill when they danced. It wasn’t that they didn’t like each other - in fact, they were fast friends - but there was no romance between them. Another choreographer might have substituted one or the other, but Royston had adapted the dance. Not lovers. Twins. Suddenly, it worked. Their complementary styles, both favouring one of barely-suppressed but nervously-reined emotion, interwove into a suggestion of deep care, of protection, of oneness in spirit and heart. Their youth accentuated the tragedy of the dance – a life cut off on the cusp of adulthood, sacrificed to the gods-, the slips of control reinforced the visceral physicality of Stravinsky’s heathen ballet. Hal, an orphan, had brought an exquisite depth of feeling to his performance of a young man losing the last of his family.

“Yes,” he said. He could not say otherwise, not after such a night, not with a glass in his hand and Hal at his feet, the warm glow of the fire by their sides. “I am happy.”

The smile that spread on Hal’s face was so soft, so lovely, that Royston felt acutely in danger of doing something very foolish. He tried to take a deep drink of wine but found his glass was empty. Hal saw, and rose, setting his hand alongside Royston’s on the stem of the glass.

“Let me,” he said. Hal’s fingers brushed over Royston’s as he pulled the glass from his hand. It wasn’t a caress, but it burned through him all the same. Hal didn’t wait for an answer and disappeared down the hall. Royston could hear him open the fridge, pop the wine stopper, replace the bottle, close the fridge.  
  
Royston took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He had an idea what Hal had come for tonight, but he was not sure it was his right to give.  
  
Hal returned, carrying a second glass for himself. He was in the process of handing Royston his when his eyes fell on the desk and the drawings. His eyes widened briefly, and he sauntered over. Hal sifted through the disordered pile with a delicate, careful hand, lifting one page, lining it up with another, then discarding both in favour of another. Royston set his glass on the mosaic-topped side-table at his arm and joined him.  
  
Hal smiled gently as Royston came to stand at his shoulder. His fingers stroked a longing line along the corner of a page. “I love these,” he said quietly.  
  
The drawings were precious to Royston too, the blueprints of a dream he had never dared to realize. A lead dance with a male couple. He must have made hundreds of sketches, adaptations of existing ballets, changed to accommodate the different physiques, original choreographies entirely of his hand and mind, lines of notes and music scribbled in the margins. A lifetime’s worth of yearning and ambition. In ballet terms, the drawings were, in a word, scandalous. Hal’s fingers traced them like a bible.  
  
“Which one do you like best?” Royston inquired, displeased to find his voice had gone slightly hoarse. He felt not unlike Odysseus, waiting for Achilles to select a sword from a collection of silk and reveal himself.  
  
He watched Hal select a sheet from the mess on the desk, rooting around with intent – it was clear that he had already decided on a favourite. When Hal pulled it triumphantly from the pile, Royston was surprised by his choice. The sketch was messy, bodies roughly lined in quick, slightly blocky strokes: the two dancers chest to back, the front one in a low third arabesque supported in the other’s arms, their bodies close together both with the right leg in plié. The central feature of the drawing was the dancers’ faces, which, unusually, Royston had decided to show in detail. Most of the sketches had blank faces, but here the closed eyes, the slightly-open mouth, the trusting surrender of the swoon, were drawn in tender lines.  
  
His throat closed, and he found he could not speak.  
  
“Do you think they’ll ever get to the stage?” Hal asked softly, taking his silence in stride. “I’d love to see one performed. I’d-,” he blushed charmingly, “I’d love to dance one.”  
  
“It would be a pleasure to see you,” Royston admitted.  
  
“We should, sometime.” They were standing very close, Hal turned back towards him a little to look him in the eye over his slender shoulder. His lips were parted slightly.  
  
“Hal,” Royston said warningly, leaning incrementally closer.    
  
“I only want to dance these with you.”  
  
“I. Hal,” Royston scrambled. He should step away, he thought, but his body wouldn’t move. “It’s very late, maybe you should-“  
  
Hal’s brow furrowed, his jaw set. “No.”  
  
Royston closed his mouth. Hal’s expression softened almost immediately. “Please,” he whispered, “let me stay.”  
  
Royston felt his chest contract in a sharp sting of desire, felt, at last, his resistance cede under the tender pain in Hal’s voice, the long months of his restraint. He twisted a gentle finger into Hal’s auburn hair, drawing him in. “Alright,” he said quietly against Hal’s soft mouth. “Stay.”  
   
The kiss started out soft, and remained that way for several minutes as Hal turned fully towards him to meet it, Royston’s hands slipping into his hair, Hal’s gripping tight to his dress shirt. They stumbled a little, away from the desk until they hit a wall. Royston pressed Hal against it. Hal tipped back his head and moaned. Royston kissed his jaw, his neck, the freckles there hard to see in the flickering light from the fire, but he had watched Hal enough to know they were there, to know the way they cascaded down his pale neck to his shoulders and scattered over his chest like stars. Royston kissed his collarbone, exposed by the oversized white shirt, and heard Hal suck in a rough breath. He opened his eyes and met Royston’s, wide and dark, and Royston leaned back up and kissed him. The second kiss was rougher, more open. Hal’s hand tangled in his hair, holding him tight to his mouth. Noises escaped between them, quiet and needy. He didn’t want to pull away.  
  
“Hal,” Royston gasped, pressing his face against Hal’s tender throat. Hal moaned feelingly. His clever fingers had unbuttoned Royston’s shirt to the navel – when had _that_ happened? - and Hal was lifting one of his thighs like he wanted to throw it over Royston's hip.  
  
“Please,” Hal said. It was all he said, and they were kissing again.  
  
“It’s – we don’t have – It’s very late,” Royston said, trying to sound reasonable. He stroked down Hal’s long back, trying to settle him. They were both breathing hard, but Hal sounded rough, like he couldn’t get enough air. “We don’t have to do anything.”  
  
“I want to.” Hal’s face was flushed, but his eyes shone determinedly. His grip on Royston’s shoulder was almost strong enough to hurt. “I want to know what it’s like, when you love someone.”  
  
Royston let out a sharp low groan, like he’d been hurt, and pressed Hal against the wallpaper with all the force of five months’ longing. Their mouths met wetly, urgently.  
  
“Hal, have you - ever?” But he knew he hadn’t. Royston had, helplessly, lent him his copy of _Maurice_ months ago, when he’d intuited the confusion in Hal during one of their first study sessions, the nervous tension when Royston guided his movements during rehearsal. There were other books he might have given him, ones that would have been more instructive, less old-fashioned, but he had wanted Hal to have Forster’s fairytale ending first. He thought about the rawness in Hal’s face as he’d danced the loss of his family with Laure, about the reverent gaze he had lit on Royston’s choreographic sketches, that he had lit on Royston himself. His chest heaved, feeling tight.

“No,” Hal said, breathing harshly against his mouth. “Show me.”

Royston took him to bed. He kissed his shoulders and mouth, the long muscled expanse of his back, and held Hal tight around the chest as he made love to him, feeling like he could settle his whole body inside him and never leave if he could just hold Hal the right way.  
  
Afterwards, lying together in the bed Royston had not shared with anyone since the start of the year, Hal pressed a kiss to his chest and said, “Do you think we could make it happen? If we tried?”  
  
Royston didn’t have to ask what he was talking about. He stroked the back of Hal’s neck; the tips of Hal’s shaggy hair tickled his knuckles. He revelled quietly in the weight of Hal on his body, the grounding pressure of Hal’s thigh thrown across his. “Maybe, in a few years,” he said cautiously. He could not see anything happening as long as Nico presided over the Académie Board, but he had sensed a growing unrest at the top the past few years. These things, perhaps, could change.  
  
“I think it would be important,” Hal said. “I think if I’d seen-” he paused, either to find the words or to control a strong emotion, Royston couldn’t quite tell. “It would have mattered a lot,” he said finally.    
  
Royston stroked a thumb down the angle of Hal’s cheekbones, pushing the messy bangs back from Hal’s forehead with his other hand. “Let’s finish out your season first,” he said gently, leaning up for a kiss. It would not be easy. The Académie was about as conservative as they came. Hell, even _Le Sacre_ was still considered provocative and it had been a hundred years since its debut. But Hal was right too, that it would be important, that it _was._  
  
And he felt - for the first time - confident that it might be worth the inevitable scandal to try.


End file.
